Salt Lake Bees pound Sacramento as season nears an end

Finally, the Salt Lake Bees found a way to win a series against the Sacramento River Cats in September.

Unfortunately for the Bees, however, this one means very little in comparison to the previous two Septembers.

Salt Lake downed Sacramento 13-3 on Sunday afternoon at Spring Mobile Ballpark, clinching the regular season ending best-of-4 series against the River Cats with today's 2 p.m. game left to play.

But Sacramento, owners of the best record in the Pacific Coast League, will still be heading to the playoffs after today's game, while the Bees — for the first time in four years — will be heading home before the postseason starts.

In each of the previous two years the River Cats have knocked Salt Lake out of the postseason in September. This time, however, Sacramento will play either Tacoma or Colorado Springs for the PCL's Pacific Conference title.

The win was a bit of a milestone for the Bees, however. It gives them a 72-70 record, clinching them a winning season once again.

That accomplishment seemed unlikely less than two weeks ago when Salt Lake fell seven games under .500 at 62-69.

Since then, however, the Bees have gone 10-1.

"We've gone on a roll and the guys that are here I'm really impressed with," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "This shows their character, how they've gone out there and battled every night."

Bees veteran Adam Pavko?vich isn't surprised with the strong finish to the season. He just wishes it would have started a little earlier.

"We knew our team was capable of putting wins together like this," said Pavko?vich. "We just hit a little funk and that pushed us out of the playoffs. ... (Getting above .500) was the only thing left we had to strive for. We knew if we could push a couple of wins across we could say that we had a winning season.

The Bees scored five runs in the bottom of the second inning off of Sacramento starter James Simmons to take a 5-0 lead. Second baseman Luis Figueroa had a two-run single and Pavko?vich and Flint Wipke added run-scoring hits for the Bees as well.

Bees pitchers Brad Salmon, Shane Loux and Eddie McKiernan made sure that the big lead held up. The River Cats managed just six hits all game.

All nine Bees batters, meanwhile, had at least one hit in Salt Lake's 14-hit attack.

Mike MacDonald (8-12, 6.13 ERA) is scheduled to start the season finale today for the Bees against Sacramento's Jerome Williams (4-6, 5.68 ERA).

Bees 13, River Cats 3

Top performance: Bees starter Brad Salmon gave up one earned run on

five hits with six strikeouts and one walk in 5 2/3 innings to improve

to 8-4 on the year

Record: 72-70

Next up: today vs. Sacramento, 2 p.m.

Current series: Bees lead 3-0

Next homestand: 2010 season

e-mail: lojo@desnews.com